The Meaning of Life aka Marching Band
by Taya
Summary: My freshman season of marching band is over and I've learned so much... So what does being a guardie mean? Or a bandie, for that matter?


AN: Based mostly off of my own experience this past season.  
  
The Meaning of Life...a.k.a. Marching Band  
  
Matt says not to listen to the Guard tapes. "I don't want you getting ideas," he says. "I will listen to them and the parts you need to know, I will tell you."  
  
Well, screw Matt.  
  
We're listening to the Guard tapes.  
  
And we are laughing our heads off.  
  
"From so high up," the woman says, "I can't tell what that is on your faces."  
  
I snort.  
  
"But I like the triangle designs...The triangle-shaped form that you come out into from behind the columns, the red triangle patches on your legs, and the triangle banners," she continues. "The flags are exquisite, and I adore your uniforms. They match the band nicely."  
  
We all burst out into laughter at this one. Somebody stops the tape player and all of us stumble over to the memory board, where photos of last year's guard are laminated alongside photos of bandies.  
  
We were wearing atrocious looking purple one-piece uniforms with bright, neon green crosses on the right sides of our chests. Then we looked to the band photos, of them in their bright-red uniforms and black pants, and then back and forth between the two.  
  
"Well...I'm glad we got rid of THOSE on some poor, unsuspecting high school far, far away.."  
  
What does being in a colorguard, or just in a marching band, mean?  
  
It means you're part of a family. Marching band takes care of itself. When you're just a lowly freshman, and the seniors are beating on you, it means that the Drum Major who everyone respects though he's just a junior comes to your rescue and yells at the seniors (making you wish you had a camera).  
  
It means you push the limits of physical endurance every day and you succeed. When you're about to pass out, by all means, sit out, but anything less than that will only make you stronger.  
  
It means you challenge physics every time you push that flag up into the air, daring it to come down and hit you on the head (and it used to, but not anymore!).  
  
It means you become so much more of a musician than you ever imagined. It means you have more coordination than you thought, or people gave you credit for.  
  
It means you become fit and get muscles you never knew you could have in places you never thought would have muscles.  
  
It means you outrun the star of the track team every now and then when you're in phys ed, but when the track coach asks you to join track, you say, "sorry, I have marching band." It means when they try to compromise, you smile knowingly and say, "sorry, I'm in winterguard too."  
  
It means when your best friend goes psycho in the hallway because you say that you're not doing the musical, you say, "marchin..." and before the word gets out of your mouth, they nod sagely and hurry to their next class so as not to be late.  
  
It means being underappreciated and overworked but doing it anyway.  
  
It means staring at your band director whilst he gripes about being paid less than ten bucks an hour to work overtime with the band...  
  
...but when he begins crying because you've just broken the district record for the marching band's score, you know he wouldn't want to be anywhere else.  
  
It means you see the band room more than you see your own room, and you might not even play an instrument.  
  
It means you know exactly how to fix an instrument. In the dark. On a bumpy bus that's not a charter bus because the district's too cheap to pay for charter buses.  
  
It means you can do your hair in two minutes, shlack it back with more hair gel than you knew existed on the face of the Earth, and still be the first to be ready out of all of your band friends - because you're in the guard.  
  
It means having people taunt you but knowing that they could never do it and they only tease you for being a 'band geek' because they know that they're just jealous - besides, you're in the guard!  
  
It means trying to add onto your captain's speech that overall, guard is a family and not being able to continue because you don't want to cry and mess up your makeup.  
  
It means doing it anyway and managing not to cry because you KNOW you can't mess up the makeup.  
  
It means buying hand warmers wholesale because you spent an entire football game freezing your ass off...and then not one game afterwards being cold enough to need them.  
  
It means holding a girl's head for two hours because she was sick but had to be at the game anyway to perform. It means missing the halftime show because you're at an away game for it, and not minding.  
  
It means finding out fifteen minutes before you have to board the bus and leave, whilst you're still changing in a stall in the bathroom, that one of the clarinets was in a car accident.  
  
It means screaming and panicking about aforesaid clarinet in aforesaid car accident for all of three seconds before the messenger regains the state of mind to tell you that the clarinet - and her boyfriend - are both okay.  
  
It means slapping said clarinet for being stupid enough to run a red light to get back to school on time for departure, then burying your head in her shoulder because you know you'd have done the same thing. Even though you can't drive.  
  
It means crying with said clarinet although she's a senior and you're just a freshman.  
  
It means calling seniors at ten p.m. to ask them for a ride to school the next day because you need to bring in your equipment and don't feel like letting the buffoon on the bus put a hole through the bus' roof with your flag.  
  
It means them saying yes without hesitation.  
  
It means four hundred sneaky ways to figure out what said senior doesn't already have - but wants - so you can give it to her as a thank-you gift for all of those late-night phone calls and early-morning drives to school.  
  
It means finally figuring it out, and buying it at nine-thirty at night and spending two hours trying to wrap it nicely.  
  
It means then staying up past midnight to write the thank-you note and various other stuff, the night before championships.  
  
It means seeing her cry and telling her not to, because that wasn't the point.  
  
It means waking up sore in places you didn't know you had, and still going to school and staying awake for all eight classes, PLUS lunch, and then rehearsing until the football game begins.  
  
It means winning every competition you go to, even though you're going up against last year's champions and your band is a newbie in this group.  
  
It means losing your first competition three-quarters through the season because said former champions don't like the fact that an upstart newbie band beat them in the beginning of the season and that makes them even more hungry to beat us down.  
  
It means making a comeback at states and bumping your score up by three points to overtake the band that beat you by four points at the last competition and then miraculously dropped a few fractions of a point.  
  
It means knowing that one-hundredth of a point matters.  
  
It means cursing off at one of the other guard members because she got herself injured whilst practicing and and is now out for the rest of the season.  
  
It means then consoling her because she feels lost and left out now that she can only watch.  
  
It means looking back at the school your parents wanted to move so you could go to, and noting that their marching band is only group IA, and being thankful you didn't move for that sole reason.  
  
It means making a fifty new upperclassmen friends before school even starts for the year.  
  
It means having more inside jokes than you thought were possible.  
  
It means enduring funny looks when you bring up these inside jokes.  
  
It means shrugging off other people's insults, because you know that they couldn't possibly understand.  
  
It means you have to LIVE it to understand it.  
  
It means you will be a better person for the rest of your life.  
  
It means you go to bed sore every night and wake up in the morning feeling even worse, but that you know that you wouldn't change it for the world.  
  
It means you are a bandie, or a guardie, or a bando, or a guardo.  
  
It means you are proud of it. 


End file.
